Myself, as well. If you think about it, it’s the perfect camouflage – anyone seen wearing one would automatically be tagged as ‘not a college student’. Heck, she could even say she’s visiting from Sal’s old school…

Hungover people are the best people to ask for these sorts of favours. They will literally do anything to make you go away and bring back the quiet and the darkness. (Also, Sal probably wouldn’t care even if she wasn’t and Billie probably wouldn’t mind doing a good turn either)

Nah, I linked the “motorcycles are for people who can say ‘fuck'” strip, trusting that people would remember that Becky proved at dinner last night that she can say “fuck”, ’cause that was a lot more recent. I would’ve linked them both, but then my post would’ve needed approval.

I’m assuming only one beer because she was almost completely sober (and drawn that way) before Jason came over, and as soon as that one beer was done she was both drawn and acting super drunk. Unless drunkness hits Sal like the world’s most random freight train (totally sober beers 1-8, suddenly falling-down drunk after 9) I can be pretty sure that one beer did the trick for Sal.

It does happen that way, though, especially if someone is pouring them in quickly (“gimme three, I’m late so I gotta get caught up”). And sometimes people can hold themselves in control until they reach a tipping point at which time the ‘give-a-damn’ is finally busted and Slushy McLush takes over.

I have a friend who has alcohol tolerance like that, actually. He’s basically sober until suddenly he’s completely hammered, no middle ground. We refer to it as his Zener breakdown tolerance. (Yeah, we’re EE nerds, wanna make something of it?)

But that’s not the case here. Sal really did get falling-down drunk off one beer. The Walkertons are lightweights legendary across universes.

I’m sad because we’re never going to get to Joyce’s 21st birthday. I want to see her drink both of the twins under the table again.

There are certain things humans do without any sort of mental connection at all. Most people. for example, when entering their home or apartment will reach out — in the dark, mind you! — to the light switch, turn it on, and then immediately turn around and close and lock the door. No thought; no hesitation; call it routine or habit.

Now, speaking from bitter experience, even drunk the human body retains a surprising amount of ability and agility, to the point where you can still (after a fashion) unlock and lock doors, drive vehicles, climb stairs, and so on. Once Sal returned to vertical, she probably let herself into the room (although she apparently neglected to lock the door) and after a brief sit-down on a chair got up and got herself into bed — although it may have taken more than one try to finally accomplish it.

My friend refers to it as “the lizard brain”. Basically muscle memory. Plus arguably after a small nap in front of her door, Sal could hypothetically have sobered up enough to haul herself to the top bunk for a proper rest.

Statistically it’s not a bad assumption, especially when we know that Billie has been at least one boy. At the very least that fact makes the assumption less stinging as bisexual people tend to be less hung up on identities (in my experience).

Considering Billie hasn’t hesitated being quite vocal about guys and is heavily implied to have gotten action in that area and Sal actually knows her from before school it’s not really heteronormative to expect a continuation of the same behaviour. Sal doesn’t know Billie is bi, at most she knows she’s overly affectionate when drunk.

Alternately, she has an inkling about Billie and [SIGNIFICANT OTHER], but is either hung over or slept badly and it’s affecting her speech/thinking. “Boyfriend” here is a stand-in for “whoever she’s seeing right now”.

Wait, how can you be sure rebelling against her fundi upbringing isn’t also a kink? I mean, she has perfectly legitimate reasons (lesbian and all), but you can still be right for all the wrong reasons.

The assumption that Billie has a boyfriend originates with this strip, I believe. I don’t know who, if anyone, at the time would know that Billie is bi, so they just defaulted to the idea that there was a boyfriend.

One of the guys on the door is Andrew Garfield. Not sure about the other.

Joyce knew. I’m pretty sure she put it together at the Alice encounter, if not during their earlier discussion about bicuriosity. But Joyce is Joyce; even if she knows that Billie’s down with girl-on-girl hanky-panky, that’s not going to be her first assumption.

And I think Walky’s known since high school. He certainly didn’t seem surprised by the Alice drama.

Soooo, given Sal’s antiauthoritarianism. And the free room. Do you think Sal and Becky will end up ‘rooming’ together? It’d help them pass inspections too, since it’d be a little weird if the monitors went in to see a completely empty room.

Becky seems to be unintentionally stumbling across all kinds of evidence of Billie’s relationship with Ruth. I think I’ve been won over to the group of people thinking that Becky and Ruth will come to an ‘understanding’ over their respective secrets. Becky doesn’t talk about Billie and Ruth’s alcoholic deathspiral, and Ruth looks the other way regarding Becky’s couchsurfing. Likely begrudgingly from both sides.

Realistically speaking, getting an apartment usually means saving up the first and last month’s worth of rent plus a security deposit. A job at Galasso’s isn’t going to be an immediate ticket into a place of her own.

Though somebody in the cast already has an off-campus apartment: Marcie. Maybe they’ll meet at some point, maybe not.

Unrealistically speaking, as of the end of the last storyline, I think Becky realized that living with Joyce is not a permanent solution or even a very good one long-term, if only because she’ll never be able to get enough distance to get over Joyce and move on when they’re living together.

I think we’re going to see Becky taking steps of one kind or another sooner rather than later, myself.

It looks like Constantine, who is the main character from the Hellblazer comic book. They made a movie (bad one) and a TV show (quite good) from it, it looks like the poster use the TV representation of the character. He’s a blondish stubbly magnificient bastard brit.

I have no reason to believe otherwise, but I’m surprised Sal is that okay with someone borrowing her clothes. And by “borrowing” I mean “rifling through her closet”. (Which is pretty much the only option Becky has here, so not in a “begrudging her” way.)

Still not sure what to make of her. I think she’s the only character whose past hasn’t been corroborated by anyone else. Or am I wrong?

??? I think Sal has the most heavily corroborated past of anyone in the strip. She grew up with Walky, Billie, and Marcie, encountered Amber and Ethan (and kinda Blaine) prior to college, and we’ve actually seen flashbacks involving her from Amber, Walky, and one that I think was Sal herself.

You want [citation needed] characters, try Dina. We know basically nothing about her history, and there’s no one except her parents who could back up any of the very little she’s told us, and they’re not talking. For all we know she could be an alternate-universe alien abductee who was drafted to fight the aliens and ended up being blasted out of existence in a touching self-sacrifice and presumed dead for a decade before re-emerging on IU campus through a rip in dimensions caused by too much diversity, thus explaining the cereal obsession.

Not Sal, Becky. Sal’s past is well-documented but sealed, I’m guessing. The problem with flashbacks in this comic is that they’re subjective, even being narrated by the character having it. Mike has been given an objective flashback; taking this as a sign that Willis knows the difference, I’m now suspicious anytime anyone has one that can’t easily be checked up on by other characters. (I’m hoping that I’m overthinking it, as it means I’m unable to read Becky’s character arc without questioning it.)

Dina’s past is like the fossil record – enough evidence to base a theory on (NOT a hypothesis, but an honest-to-God theory in the scientific sense), but nothing so concrete as to be proof. I suspect that this is deliberate.

Why would you take off or cover up the Carman shirt? No, serious. Carman’s music is kick ass no matter what you believe. Have you seen the Great God music video? It’s like a lost episode of Highlander!

You ever notice that when you look back through Willis’ two Tumblr accounts to try and find a sneak preview of something like the outfit that Becky has found that he is always too smart to have posted a preview of those comics?